I'm new to the list and still catching up. Regarding Cliff's earlier (Nov 01) question about Tony Holmes, the engineer on the Pope bird.

I flew with him at Yokota 91 through about 93. Although he'd been flying for several years after the accident, for some reason the AF grounded him. He ended up getting medically discharged with a partial disability rating, and moved to Thailand. Supposedly, he opened up a fish farm there, but it didn't last. I don't know where he went after that.

I'm getting some of this info second-hand, so I can't swear to it, but I do remember him at Yokota. He was pretty noticeable since his hands were pretty badly scarred from burns. Nice guy, though.

While I was at Kirtland, one of our birds needed a new rudder (was damaged by high winds, hence the caution in the MX manuals about "If flight controls have not been pressurized...), we got a "new" rudder from... guess where... Pope! Turns out that one of the afore mentioned crashes had a salvageable rudder... which was duly shipped to us at Kirtland! When we (the MX people) found out where it came from, made the receiving of this part all the spookier. (As an aside, the rudder was dropped from the truck's trailer enroute, sustaining damage to it's leading edge... coinicdence???) After discovering this part's history, there weren't any MX types that wanted to fly on good ole 65-0973... I think that this rudder may still be installed to this day! (Gee, could us MX types be superstitious??? )

Tony was assigned to Yokota around 1992. When I arrived in 1994 he had been medically retired - some idiot Flight Doc decided that he was unfit to fly because he could not sweat in the area of his arm that was burned. Tony started working at the NCO club and worlked his way to Bar Manager and Assistant Club Manager. He departed Yokota in late 1998 or early 1999 to accept a position as the O Club Manger at one of the bases in CA - Mather I think. The email address I had for Tony bounces and I checked with Tony Kres a while back and he does not have an address either.

The pope LAPES crash was Pilot error cut and dried, the accident board after reviewing the video footage determined that the crew was dead the second the pilot pushed over for EZ extraction. Hell I could tell that watching the video, extremely aggressive. There was culpability against the sqd commander and DO as well, previous complaints against the pilot with no corrective action by command structure. If I remember right the pilot was also (the Bain of the HERK world) a FAIP.

As for the Dyess bird it was doing a heavy equipment drop with a Sheridan, and what brought down the aircraft were two 28-foot extraction chutes. One unusual item brought out with the accident report, which should really be rememberd, is the fact that the plane might have been able to fly if the pilot PULLED off power instead of putting it in to full. This sounds odd and completely unnatural but with the two chutes deployed the drag factor increases exponentially; instead of a hundred pounds of thrust resulting in a hundred pound of drag, that hundred pounds of thrust would result in thousands of pounds of drag. I dont remember the exact ratio but its in the findings.

You bring up an interesting point about airplane crashes. When they are investigated properly we find all kinds of things that could have been done to change the outcome. That is one of the reasons why these things are investigated.

One of those lessons was learned after the midair collision with a F16 that wound up in the troop drop prep area behind the Green ramp. I was told that simulator test showed the F16 was flyable after the collision but that confusing radio traffic and the bucking of the plane made the crew punch out before they had time to recover properly. The story I heard was that a Marine C130 copilot who witnessed the accident was yelling to eject over the radio. The person in the back seat of the F16, who was on his cherry ride, thought the pilot was telling him to eject and the pilot thought vise-versa. A lot of good people might have been saved had the crew taken more time to recover but you cant blame them for their actions now. All we can do is learn from them.

Anybody know anything different than this about the post crash findings? Anybody talked to Rob Baker in the last few years. I saw in the online newspaper a couple of years ago that he finnaly got his medal for that day.

I was standing out in back of the avionics building when that F16 came down on top of the 130. All we heard was an F16 go into AB, then an explosion. Being around Bragg with the 155mm's going off all the time, I made a remark about PMEL being blown up.

We hopped in a truck to go to the other side of the base to eat lunch, still not knowing what happened. That's when we saw the smoke, nose cone of the F16, and the aft section of the rear horiz stab of the 130.

Kudos to the guys who got the burn victims to the Bragg hospital, mostly it seemed in the back of civilian pick-up trucks and flight line vehicles. The old guy driving the AAFES roach coach was burned as well.

I always knew when they moved the F16's into Pope that it wasn't a good idea, but hated to see the carnage to prove that thought process right.

Scarey as this sounds (and only retired this past Oct) I still have the Crew Resource Management Workbook CRI 118-01 from CRM facilitator course. I did most of my time at KDYS and wrapped up 26 yrs at KLRF. Ran into quite a few crewdogs that knew both crews. If you want I can scan the summaries in and sent them to you. Morbid as it is for you lucky buggers still logging flight time you can still pass the stuff on to the troops. Shoot me a note; heyload60@allte.net

I was the Dedicated Crew Chief on 0945 at the time of the crash. It was a great aircraft, and this was obviously a terrible, terible accident. I still have the base newspaper with information on the crash. I did have a copy of the video feed from local news stations (if I still have it).

that was my last plane before I left Pope, I was sick to hear it had crashed, I worked my tail chasing an errand GTC. That plane had hit the water in Panama, and spent 3-4 months at WRALC, then 2 months in refurb at Pope. I left in February and I think in the summer it was crashed. What is your name huckledog?

Story in af.mil/news tells of test of this device to be used during hevy equipment air drops in the event of a malfunctions. This device would cut the extraction chute free without requiring the LM to go behind the load to cut it manualy. This device will be operational next year.The story makes reference to a crash at Pope 20 years ago.